Through them, one had a spec - tacular view across the river to the futuristic Flamme d'Or, the Phillippe Starke-designed building of black glass, a kind of tetrahedron on acid, surmounted by a vaguely flamelike shape derisively christened by Tokyoites "the Golden Turd."

For the first prize in 1901 the Academy had to consider 20 nominations, but no less than 11 of these named van't Hoff, who was also chosen by the Committee for Chemistry. van't Hoff had already during his thesis work in Utrecht in 1874 published his suggestion that the carbon atom has its four valences directed towards the corners of a regular tetrahedron, a concept which is the very foundation of modern organic chemistry.